| Author | Message | ||
     Trojan |
After years of having no British riders in top level International racing, and a British passport seeming to be toxic to team owners and promoters, it now seems as though the tide is turning at last. The provisional entry lists for MotoGP were published yesterday and to my surprise there are 8 British riders listed as competing this year  Cal Crutchlow is obviously the only MotoGP rider, and is in a 'learning' year so we don't expect to much from him (although the odd top 5 would be nice!) then we have Scott Redding, Bradley Smith and Kev Cochlan in Moto2, all of whom are more than capable of running at the sharp end of the field. 125GP though is the big surprise, with not only the perrenial Danny Webb entered on the Indian/Italian Mahindra, but also Taylor Mackenzie (son of Niall)and Harry Stafford on Aprilias. The most exciting prospect however will be young Danny Kent on the Derbi that was ridden by last years champion Marc Marquez (and in the same team). I don't think any of the 125 guys will threaten a podium this year with the possible exception of Danny Kent, but Moto 2 certainly looks like it could produce a UK winner With WSB sporting 6 Brits (including Laverty who is from Northern Ireland despite the Eire flag waving when he wins) and 4 potential race and championship winners (Chaz Davies, Gino Rea, Sam Lowes and James Ellison) in WSS it looks like being a great year for British motorcycle racing fans at last Feel free to wave a Union Jack (Message edited by trojan on January 25, 2011) | ||
| Amafan |
GP racing in the smaller classes is more about how much money a rider can bring to a team, then it is about how fast a rider is . An example of this is Jake Gagne of the USA won the RedBull Rookies Cup,but can not get a 125 ride, but 3 Britsh riders he beat in the Rookies Cup got 125 rides . | ||
| Trojan |
An example of this is Jake Gagne of the USA won the RedBull Rookies Cup,but can not get a 125 ride, but 3 Britsh riders he beat in the Rookies Cup got 125 rides . It certainly isn't down to money that the 3 British guys got 125 rides, as none of them have any outside financial assistance and certainly couldn't pay for rides (unlike Spanish and Italian riders who get big assistance from their federation)! What is more relevant is the 125 racing is still very popular here in the UK and part of the established career structure is that the riders spend a lot of time racing in the Spanish championship. This gets them noticed by the top teams far more than the Red Bull Rookies cup does over the course of the season as a lot of the 125GP teams also run teams in the Spanish series. Jake Gagne would really need to move to Spain to race in order to get noticed and pick up a 125GP ride I think (as PJ Jacobsen did when got the ride with Aspar). I am quite surprised not to see Dakota Mamola in 125 GP yet, but I'm sure his name will feature next year on the entry lists | ||
| Xb1125r |
what would be nicer is to see Triumph in the GP. a brit on a britt bike | ||
| Trojan |
what would be nicer is to see Triumph in the GP. a brit on a britt bike Norton are working on a MotoGP bike using their own V4 engine for 2012 and have already made an entry with the organisers for 2 bikes Don't know who the riders will be but I would be willing to bet that at least one will be British. In the meantime we'll just have to cheer the Brits on those nasty Johnny Foreigner bikes |
